


The Great Biscuit Calamity of 1978, and Other Such Disasters

by Lunatik_Pandora



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Baking, Banter, Christmas, Domestic Fluff, F/M, M/M, Remus Lupin Lives, Sirius Black Lives, Swearing, Welsh Remus Lupin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:16:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28292970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunatik_Pandora/pseuds/Lunatik_Pandora
Summary: Remus and Sirius had a long history of managing to nearly ruin every holiday they were involved in.Now they just needed to...notdo that.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 18
Kudos: 53
Collections: Harry Potter Fanfiction Club Presents: Christmas 2020





	The Great Biscuit Calamity of 1978, and Other Such Disasters

It was an indisputable fact that any holiday celebration that involved the two of them would be controlled chaos under the best circumstances.

Being around Sirius Black was rather like driving a car that was spinning wildly out of control, Remus thought. Over the long years of their association, he had learned that the best way to avoid catastrophe was to hold the wheel steady and _do not_ , whatever you do, slam on the brakes. One did not simply _stop_ Sirius Black, after all; one could only accept that their lot in life was to trail after him in the cloud of chaos that followed in his wake like a swarm of angry bees.

All of this to say that the kitchen was presently coated in a thick blanket of flour, and Sirius was standing in the middle of the room with a face like a man who’d had a dungbomb go off in his hands unexpectedly.

“Alright, Tony?”

Sirius scoffed, a small amount of flour puffing off his lips as he turned to grace Remus with a roguish grin.

Or as roguish as one could be whilst covered head to toe in flour, anyway.

"Would you kiss me if I wore the hat?" he asked in a badly affected Italian accent, and Remus shook his head with a small, incredulous huff. Sirius had been on a movie binge recently, mob classics being the flavour of the week.

"Not _my_ hat, you're not. I'd kiss you any time of the day or night, as you well know, but I do draw the line at flour-encrusted." He pulled his wand from his belt and began clearing the mess, albeit poorly. Cleaning charms were never his forte. "How did you even manage that, anyway? Like, I'm equal parts horrified and impressed, I am."

"I was only trying to open the bag--"

"With what? An Exploding Charm?"

"Oh, har bloody har," Sirius scowled at him. "With my _hands_ , I'll have you know. I was having trouble opening it, and it just…" he trailed off, miming something bursting open.

"And you didn't take that as your sign to wait for me, because…?"

"Because I'm a stubborn twat."

Very matter-of-fact about it, Sirius was. Remus rolled his eyes, huffing lightly.

"You are certainly that, yes."

He shook his head and ducked into the pantry, grabbing the remaining bag of flour and making a mental note to nip back out to the shops later to pick up more.

"You know," Sirius drawled in a tone that promised mischief. "I do seem to recall a time when _you_ were the disaster in the kitchen."

Remus shut the pantry door with more force than was strictly necessary.

"I thought we agreed never to bring that up again."

"We say that about a _lot_ of things, and yet…" Sirius shrugged. "You'll have to refresh my memory, though. I don't remember things as well as I used to."

Remus hummed, not wanting to let Sirius have that one, but knowing he was right nonetheless. His memory had been patchy since Azkaban. Some things came through with perfect clarity — the colour of the duvet on their bed back at the London flat, the cigarette burn they'd left on James and Lily's carpet, and how Remus had panicked and failed to hide it with the coffee table. But other things were just… gone. Remus had been making it his life's work to help Sirius pick up the pieces, finding them scattered and buried like sea glass along the misty shores of his mind.

He could think of worse ways to spend his days, honestly.

Remus eyed the ingredients that Sirius had set out, summoning the neglected cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice without comment. He preferred his biscuits more spiced than the recipe strictly called for; he had certainly had plenty of time to learn how to adjust it to his taste over the years.

“The Great Biscuit Calamity of ‘78, eh?” Remus made a show of rolling his eyes and sighing, acting as though the wild, gleeful smile lighting Sirius’ face hadn’t been the goal. “That was when I’d got it in my head that if I couldn’t find a job, I could at least act a proper housewife and make biscuits.”

“God, I think I remember that. You’d made such an awful mess —”

“It could have been worse —”

“Remus, you had syrup in your _hair_.”

“You know, I still have no idea how I managed to fuck it up that badly,” Remus said with a despairing sort of laugh and a shake of his head. He began measuring out flour for the mixing bowl, and Sirius pressed a kiss firmly against his temple.

“Well, I still love you, even if you are a complete disaster.”

Remus turned and clasped Sirius’ hand firmly, as though meeting him for the first time.

“Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Cauldron, I’m Kettle.”

“I’m never as bad!” Remus gestured around the kitchen, which still bore evidence of flour having recently coated every surface. Sirius faltered briefly. “I mean… _well_. At least nothing is on fire!”

“ _Yet_ .” Sirius raised his eyebrows at him imperiously; Remus had no room to talk, and he knew it. “Oh alright, I blow up _one oven,_ and suddenly you’re Julia Child in comparison, you are.”

That brought Sirius up short, a bemused smile spreading across his lips.

“... You _did_ blow up the oven, didn’t you?” 

Remus gaped at him.

“You didn’t even _remember_ , and you’re still chopsing me over it?”

“Had to bluff it out of you somehow!” Remus hooked his fingers into Sirius’ pockets, pulling the grinning man into his chest with a low growl.

“The _cheek_ on you.” 

"S'not cheek if it's true, you know."

Remus reached over and portioned out a cup of flour, dumping it on top of Sirius’ head. Sirius coughed and spluttered, digging a fistful out of the bag and flinging it into Remus’ face in retaliation.

They carried on in this manner for several minutes, chasing one another around the kitchen and throwing flour and spatulas and dish towels, alternately screaming and roaring with laughter like they were fourteen instead of forty.

It _was_ funny, in hindsight; Remus knew better now, but he had never used a magical oven before that day in ‘78 and hadn’t realised that they were so much more finicky than the muggle variety. He’d just thought, ‘well I used to make biscuits with Mam all the time, this should be simple.’

It had not, in fact, been simple.

Remus recalled he’d been trying to make gingerbread that time, too. It had been an unmitigated disaster from the moment he’d opened the first bag of flour and dropped it onto the mixing bowl, knocking them both to the ground. From there it had been a continuous comedy of errors: from getting the dough firmly stuck to the rolling pin, to the lid popping off the cinnamon shaker and spilling the entire contents into the mixing bowl, to grating his knuckles along with the nutmeg — which had _really_ bloody hurt, by the by. 

‘Unmitigated disaster’ was perhaps too kind a term for it.

Sirius had come home to a smoked-out flat and Remus sitting on the kitchen floor coated in flour and syrup, and God knows what else, an utterly defeated look on his face. A blackened tray of charcoal lay scattered in the corner; there was a small hole in the wall from where he’d thrown it in his frustration. He recalled this to Sirius, who smiled over at him, bright and teasing, as they lay in the new mess they’d created.

It was just like old times.

“I remember now... I came home, and lay down on the floor with you and started making flour angels to cheer you up, like this.” Sirius began shifting his arms and legs, forming the 'wings’, and Remus shoved his shoulder before joining him, the two of them giggling like a pair of children.

“You’re ridiculous, you know,” Remus told him mirthfully, and Sirius winked at him.

“Kettle, Cauldron," he quipped, and well, Remus didn't have much to say to that. While Sirius could often be impulsive, and more than a little reckless at times, all “act first, ask later”, Remus would be lying if he said that he wasn’t cut from the same cloth. If Sirius was an out-of-control car, then Remus was a stunt driver: he was never only along for the ride.

He reached out and patted Sirius' thigh.

“Alright, come on, Pads. Let's get these biscuits made, or we won't have anything to show for all this mess.”

They clambered to their feet with a little less grace than they had twenty years before, and significantly more groaning.

“Getting too old for this shit,” Remus grumbled.

“Speak for yourself; I don't get old.” Sirius dusted his lap off, sniffing imperiously. “I just get more brilliant.”

Remus leaned in close, running his fingers through Sirius’ long, dark hair.

“I’m sorry, are those grey hairs I see?” Sirius swatted him away, scowling.

“You’re a fine one to talk, aren’t you? You’ll be completely silver by next Christmas, watch.”

Remus smirked, grabbing the ginger off the counter as he reached for the mixing bowl again.

“There’s a term for that, you know.”

“Yeah, and I’m not using it.” Sirius drew his wand and waved it in a pattern slightly wider than the one Remus had used earlier, properly clearing the flour from the countertops and righting the towels and various utensils they’d thrown everywhere.

To his credit, Sirius was always the first to jump in to help clean up the messes he left in his wake. Though it never mattered how many apologies fell from his pretty lips once he started haring off after the next errant thought that ran through his fool head.

Remus always went with it though, so he supposed it made him a fool as well. Bring on the bees.

“That’s too much ginger, isn’t it?” Sirius asked, peering over Remus' shoulder with a frown.

“It’s fine.”

“You didn’t even measure it.” Remus rolled his eyes.

“Oh, pack it in, would you?” He did, however, measure out the bicarbonate. That wasn’t something he could afford to fling in to taste. “You have the most depressingly English tastebuds of anyone I’ve ever met, you have. Hand me the allspice, yeah?”

Sirius snatched it off the counter and tossed it to him.

“Here. Going to use half a container of that also?”

“Quit being dramatic; I didn’t use that much.”

“Did so,” Sirius argued.”‘Depressingly English’, I ask you… you know, you spend one year in India, and suddenly you’re a bloody gourmand.” He passed Remus the cinnamon before he’d even finished opening his mouth to request it. “Not like you were born and raised here on the Isles or anything—”

“Yeah, in _Neath_.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Well, I’m not fucking English, am I?”

For a brief, terrifying moment, Remus thought he’d forgotten. However, a spark of mischief lit in Sirius’ eyes, and Remus knew he was in for it now: Sirius had only been taking the piss about this since they were firsties, as if it somehow got more amusing over time.

“Oh, that’s right, I’m sorry. You’re _Welsh_.” Remus knew the next words out of Sirius’ mouth before he spoke them. “You think you could say that one fuck-off long word?”

And there it was.

“Yeah. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgo—fuck yourself.” Sirius shimmied up next to him, bumping his shoulder as Remus attempted to grate a bit of nutmeg into the bowl. He was practically vibrating with glee.

“All these years and you still can’t say the whole thing, can you?”

Remus briefly weighed the pros and cons of shoving the nutmeg he was holding up Sirius’ left nostril.

“I can so,” he lied. “But it’s a bloody tongue twister, isn’t it? Most people shorten it to something infinitely less daft, anyway.”

“Less daft than what?”

Maybe the right nostril.

“Less daft than I am, clearly, now are you helping or are you going to keep chatting shit?” Sirius rolled his eyes, jabbing his wand at the butter, which neatly cubed itself.

“How much of this you need? Or are we not measuring that either?”

“120 grams, dickhead.” Sirius clucked his tongue at him, flicking his wand and sending the still-cold butter cube by cube into the bowl as Remus mixed the contents by hand.

“Language, Professor Lupin.”

“Oh, Professor, am I? Keep it up, and I’ll stick your arse in detention, I will.” Sirius barked out a laugh, quick and bright as a flashbulb.

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” he teased, tidying the counters while Remus worked the dough into something approaching the correct consistency. “So, while I appreciate how good you are with your hands—”

"Unsure if compliment or innuendo, but do go on."

"Both, always. Only I don't understand why you're mixing this by hand when you could just…" Sirius motioned with his wand towards the mixing bowl, miming a spell. Remus scowled and pulled the bowl away, curling around it protectively.

"Not everything has to be done with magic." Sirius hummed, not buying that excuse for a second. "And I also haven't tried it since the day I blew up the kitchen, so…"

"There it is," Sirius crowed, dodging Remus as he swatted at him. "You bloody chicken."

"You know, I reckon you don't appreciate just how traumatising that was for me."

"Aww." Sirius snaked his arms around Remus' waist and pressed a kiss to the curve of his shoulder. "Poor lamb."

"Git."

Sirius only hummed, nuzzling into the crook of his neck, and Remus couldn’t find it in his heart to keep pretending he was cross. He sighed the ghosts of all the Christmases they’d missed, his warm breath kissing the tips of Sirius’ wandering fingers as they traced delicate lines across the stitching of his jumper. There was nothing more to be said; Remus only had it in him to appreciate anything and everything about the man pressed firmly against his back.

Even if Sirius _was_ currently chewing on Remus’ earlobe as gently and obnoxiously as he possibly could. It tickled; Remus jerked his head away, laughing.

“Come on, cariad, I’m not a chew toy!”

“But what if you _were_?” Remus shot him a look of intense alarm. “No magic involved, promise!”

“What, just gonna start gnawing on my arms when you get bored, like?”

“You do have very nice arms,” Sirius said appreciatively, pulling back to run his hands over Remus’ frankly unimpressive biceps.

“You’re biased.”

“You just don’t see yourself like I do.”

“I don’t think anyone sees me quite the way you do,” Remus murmured. He shook his head, portioning some brown sugar into the bowl and carefully stirring it into the flour mixture. “Of course, I don’t really make a habit of letting just anyone see me in the altogether. Hard to take a man seriously after you’ve seen his bits out in the wind.”

“Implying anyone takes either of us seriously,” Sirius said with a snort as he pulled away to grab the syrup and egg off of the other counter. Remus turned, taking both items from him with a perfectly straight face.

“I can’t imagine why.”

“Right? Sober as a pair of judges, we are.” Sirius tucked a stray lock of curls behind his ear and began lining the baking sheets with parchment paper. “Did we ever once successfully bake anything together? Before everything, I mean.”

“God, no,” Remus said, cracking the egg into the bowl. “If I wasn’t blowing up the appliances and getting treacle stuck in inconvenient places, then you were lighting your trousers on fire or something. Or James, for that matter.”

Sirius squinted at him, wrinkling his nose.

“I never lit James on fire.”

“You did, back when you were trying to bake that cake for their big Christmas party.” Sirius stared at him blankly. “You know, the one where they were going to formally announce their engagement to her whole family, and we were all supposed to be on our best behaviour…?” He trailed off meaningfully, letting the memory percolate as he stirred in the syrup. The dough was really coming together now. Smelled right, at any rate. 

Sirius let out a low groan, burying his face in his hands.

“I thought Lily was going to fucking murder me.”

“Well, James did have a bald spot he needed to fix an hour before her family was due to arrive, so yes, I do think a bit of upset was, ah… _warranted_.”

“‘ _A bit of upset?_ ’ She lost her bloody mind! Threw the wobbly to end all wobblies.”

“And an ashtray, as I recall.”

“Good thing her aim was shite.”

“But her arm was good; knocked Pete out cold for a good fifteen minutes. Reckon he had a concussion.”

“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.” They shared a significant look. “Anyway, we fixed it in a trice, at least.”

“No, _you_ transfigured one of their throw pillows into a bad hairpiece, and _I_ put a Notice-Me-Not on it out of sheer desperation.”

Sirius nodded sagely.

“Right. Good as new.”

They shared a brief glance, pausing for a heartbeat before bursting into laughter at the memory.

In Sirius’ defence, James’s hair catching fire was more due to his own stupidity. He had decided to stick his entire head into a lit oven when Sirius asked him to check if the cake was ready, the daft tit. (It was burnt, for the record.) Remus, meanwhile, had been grateful for the distraction since it meant Lily didn’t notice he’d accidentally vanished her grandmother’s baking dish in addition to the sad, blackened husk of a failed confection.

Cleaning charms were _really_ not his forte.

The party was nice, at least, despite the inauspicious start. Lily always had a gift for canapés, and her family had been overjoyed to welcome James into the fold. Minus the sister and her husband, but no one liked them anyway. Remus and Sirius, under orders to “please stay out of trouble Or Else,” had hovered in the back corner with Pete and a massive bottle of champagne and ate slices of the box cake Pete had picked up from the Tesco.

Remus distinctly remembered that when grabbing the second bottle, they’d bet Pete he couldn’t hit Dursley in the back of the head with the cork, and they’d been three sickles poorer between them when he’d managed it. But he kept that recollection to himself.

He dropped the biscuit dough onto a length of baking parchment that Sirius had laid out for him, pressing the ball down to flatten it and laying another layer on top. It was a trick Remus had picked up that prevented him from getting the dough inextricably stuck to the bloody pin again. That and cooling charms. Remus rolled the dough out to a half centimetre thickness and removed the top layer of parchment, setting it aside.

“We doing normal biscuit shapes or people?”

“What sort of question is that,” Sirius scoffed, reaching around Remus to press the cookie cutter into the dough without any further discussion on the point. “Gingerbread men or go home.”

“Just men?” Remus asked, stepping back to allow Sirius full access. “Bit sexist, innit?”

“You’re assuming they’re all wearing trousers. You don’t know; maybe they’re all naked.”

“Here I thought we were making biscuits; we’ve gone and established a gingerbread nudist colony.”

“There’s a thought.” Sirius waggled his eyebrows at him; Remus swatted at him with the dishtowel.

“I’m not setting out a plate of gingerbread bits, thank you.”

“Well, it’s more interesting than just a plate full of men; how boring!” Sirius exclaimed, as though Remus hadn’t just been making that exact point.

“This is starting to get a bit R-rated; should I be concerned?”

"No more than usual.” Sirius finished stamping out the last of the gingerbread men, and Remus stepped in to peel away the excess dough. He’d been rather neat with it; there wasn’t a great deal left. “Reckon if you’re so fussed, we could decorate a few skirts on, yeah? Keep it diverse.”

“Listen to this, eh? Lily’s rolling in her bloody grave,” Remus scolded as he placed the biscuits gently onto the baking sheets. “‘Oh they’re wearing skirts, obviously female!’ Fuck off.”

“I never said they’d be female, just they’ve got skirts on.” Sirius winked, grinning, and Remus eagerly returned fire.

“Social commentary vis-à-vis a subtle subversion of gender roles in _biscuit decorations_. Bold. Stunning. I love it.”

“See? Lily would be _proud_.”

“No, Lily would be halfway through a bottle of cab already and calling us cowards for wearing trousers.”

“Oh, like she’d ever have gotten either of us in a skirt.”

"You don't know that." At Sirius' surprised expression, he clarified: "Look, with enough alcohol in me, there's very little I can't be convinced to do. You know that."

Sirius nodded, conceding the point.

"That's true… you could pull it off, I think. You've got the legs for it."

Remus shook his head as he rolled the remaining dough back out and began cutting shapes by hand with a paring knife. Sirius peered over his shoulder, whistling appreciatively.

“Been practising, have you?” Remus eyed him balefully.

“It’s tradition. You don’t fuck with tradition.” Sirius raised an imperious brow at him. “Oh, you know what I mean.”

“I’m just saying—”

“I _know_. I’m not suggesting we sacrifice a goat or, I dunno, bathe in virgin blood or whatever you pureblood knobs do for Yule—” Sirius threw his head back and cackled gleefully at this, and Remus added another mark to his mental tally. “Only I’ve done this every year since I learned how to make the blasted things, and I’d rather keep it going.”

It felt strange, having to detail to Sirius all the little things they should have been sharing since the beginning. Even now, nearly two years after the end of the damn war, they’d only just gotten things settled enough to start learning how to share space properly again.

“If you must,” Sirius sighed dramatically, the ghosts of his smile still flitting about the corners of his lips. He rested his chin on Remus’ shoulder again, watching him peel the custom-cut biscuits off the board and place them on the tray. “Oh, look. You’ve got the whole family here, haven’t you?”

A stag and doe, for Lily and James. For himself and Sirius, a wolf and a dog. A raven for Harry. 

“Just about, yes.”

Remus took the last scraps of dough and rolled them out into a circle; Sirius frowned.

“What’s that supposed to be?”

“A quaffle, after I decorate it. For Ginny.” Sirius turned to him with an appraising look.

“What are you on about Lupin?”

“Just a hunch. Remember how Prongs was?”

Sirius snorted.

“Twitchy as a kneazle in a rocking chair shop.” He reached around and pulled a cigarette out of Remus’ front pocket, placing it between his lips; Remus snatched it back with a glare.

“You know better.”

“I wasn’t about to light it.” Sirius rolled his eyes as Remus grabbed the trays, and moved to open the oven door for him. “Didn't think that one through, did you?”

“Maybe I knew you'd be a gentleman.”

“Maybe you're full of shite.”

“Maybe I am,” Remus allowed, sliding the trays carefully into the oven. Sirius closed the door for him and set the temperature. “Or maybe I just have faith in you.”

Sirius gave him a smile like fresh biscuits: soft and sweet and warm, and when Remus kissed him, he tasted like home.

“Hmm, so, anyway,” Sirius began again, and Remus politely ignored the flush rising to his cheeks. They didn’t have time anyway. “You were saying, about Harry? You reckon it’ll be tonight?”

Remus nodded, opening the back door and casting a quick warming charm to keep the chill from seeping into the house. He handed the cigarette back to Sirius, who placed it between his lips and lit it with a snap of his fingers.

“Lad’s only been dropping hints for months,” Remus muttered, fishing another cigarette out of his pocket.

“He’s about as subtle as a bludger, isn’t he?” Sirius chewed his lip absentmindedly. “Fancy a wager?”

“Depends on the wager.”

“I lose, I’ll make crepes tomorrow morning.” Remus looked him up and down through the bluish haze of smoke between them.

“Hmm, tempting, but you could do that any morning.”

“Bust out the good coffee?”

“Warmer…”

“Breakfast in bed?” Remus was nodding at this point, but apparently not enthusiastically enough, as Sirius continued: “With the chocolate sauce and the strawberries?”

“Well fuck, I was already on board, but alright.” He took a drag, shaking his head lightly. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were angling for something.”

Sirius winked at him.

“What can I say? I’m just that confident.”

“Alright, well if I lose — and I don’t think this likely, mind — then I’ll never leave a sock out of place again.”

Sirius threw his head back and barked out a harsh laugh, and Remus had to fight to keep his expression straight.

“Right, pull the other one, would you?”

“I’m never that bad.” Sirius pinned him with an incredulous stare and Remus’ composure finally cracked. “Alright, I’m a fucking mess I am; what do you want from me?”

“A real penalty!”

“I dunno, fuck!” He ran his hand back through his hair. “Dealer’s choice.”

Sirius straightened immediately.

“Anything I want? No argument? No fussing?”

Giving a man like Sirius carte blanche was playing with fire, he knew, but God _damn_ did Remus love to watch things burn.

“None.”

“Sold.” 

They shook on it like proper gentlemen, then returned to enjoying the sight of the gently falling snow from the safety of the back step as they smoked in peace. It was nice, having nights like this. Remus didn’t think he’d ever be used to it; he knew Sirius felt the same.

“So, you think it’ll be tonight?” Sirius asked lightly.

“I’d put money on it—”

“—If you had any, yes, I know.” He glared at Remus without any heat. “That joke’s been stale longer than Harry’s been alive.”

“Regardless, that’s my bet.”

“Alright,” Sirius said. “Here’s mine then: Gingersnap beats him to the punch.”

Remus narrowed his eyes at him suspiciously, but before he could ask what Sirius knew — and he very obviously had inside information, the filthy cheat — the buzzer for the oven had gone off. They both took one final drag and stubbed their cigarettes out on the brick before heading back into the kitchen.

Sirius made a beeline for the oven, and Remus left him to it, focusing instead on cleaning out the mixing bowl. By hand, of course: Lord knows what would happen if he tried to magic it clean.

“Looks like they’re done,” Sirius said proudly, levitating the trays behind him as he pranced back to the counter.

“Did you poke one to check?”  
  
“Yes; it was quite hot.” He carefully peeled the biscuits off the tray and set them on a rack to cool. “You making the icing?”

Remus summoned four eggs and the bag of confectioner’s sugar in response. Sirius cocked his head curiously, a clear question in his eyes, and Remus huffed out a sigh that was just this side of annoyed.

“Yes, I know the recipe calls for meringue powder; no, I’m not using meringue powder.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can only use it for things which require meringue, which is a waste of money and cabinet space.” He cracked open the eggs carefully, shifting the yokes between the halves of the egg as he separated them from the whites.” But we’ve got several chickens who are more than earning their keep, and meringue itself’s not that hard to make. I think.”

“Famous last words.” Remus flipped him the v; Sirius ignored him as he pointed to the bowl of yokes. “What are you doing with those? Binning them?”

“Reckoned I’d stick 'em down the back of your shirt when you weren’t paying attention.” Sirius shuddered, and Remus laughed. “I actually thought I could use ‘em to make crème brûlée. Since we’re so good at lighting shit on fire and all like.”

Sirius whistled appreciatively.

"Come a long way from not realising you had to wait for the water to boil before adding the pasta, haven't you?"

Remus brandished the whisk at him warningly, masking his excitement over the independent recollection.

"I did that _once_."

"Once was enough, ta very much!"

It didn’t take him long to make the icing — it really _was_ simple, fuck you very much — and soon he had filled a couple of piping bags, handing one off to Sirius.

“Alright, let’s keep this PG, yeah?”

“Well, there go all my plans for the nudist colony.”

“Terribly sorry, cariad, but we must think of the children.” Sirius squinted at him.

“I’m sorry, have you _met_ Ginny?” He started piping a mini skirt onto one of the biscuits. “Guarantee she’ll have them acting out illicit scenes before pudding.”

“That will be for her parents to handle if needed,” Remus chided. “Not our child, not our problem.”

“She’s a little bit our problem.”

“If you’d like to rehash that argument with Molly in her own house, regarding one of her own children, then by all means. Let’s make Christmas dinner as tense and awkward as possible.”

“Please, it’s never a proper holiday dinner unless at least one person gets hexed.”

Remus ducked his head, acknowledging the point.

“Three at a Weasley do.”

They decorated the biscuits quietly for a few moments; some with trousers, some with skirts, one with trousers and tits like the mountains of Snowdon, which he figured he’d let Sirius find on his own. Remus looked down at the last gingerbread man to be decorated, realisation dawning on him slowly. He charmed the icing several different colours as he piped it on: a blue coat with white sleeves, khaki trousers, an awful striped jumper, and — most importantly — a floppy red hat. He jabbed his wand once more to dry the icing, grateful for the magical shortcut.

“What’s this about not everything needing magic?” Sirius teased.

“I said ‘not everything,’ not ‘nothing.’ Now come here and tell me what you see.”

Sirius walked over, looking at the gingerbread man with a politely curious air. Remus spotted the exact moment he realised what he was seeing.

“Well. Got a bit wonky in the oven, didn’t he?”

“I made it work.”

“You made him look like Pete.”

“He does a bit, yeah.”

As they stood, shoulders pressed together, nearly nose to nose, understanding passed between them on the shared breath between their lips. In unison, they reached down, and each took hold of one of the gingerbread man’s legs, snapping them cleanly off.

Some things didn’t need to be said.

“Came out good,” Sirius said lightly around the mouthful of biscuit, reaching down to take an arm. Remus hummed, taking the other.

“And here you were nagging about me not measuring. I know what I'm about.” He quirked a brow at Sirius challengingly as he popped the piece of biscuit into his mouth.

"Take all the wind out of my sails, why don't you."

"With all that hot air? Not bloody likely." Remus plucked the limbless gingerbread victim up off the rack, snapping it in half and offering the head to Sirius. He took it in his teeth with a wolf-like grin.

Remus was about to fire back with an undoubtedly witty remark when he was cut off by the sound of the floo activating in the other room.

"You two decent?" Harry called with the wariness of a young man who had learned that lesson the hard way.

"No solicitors, thank you," Remus called back, getting elbowed sharply in the ribs for his trouble.

"Oh, har bloody har." Harry appeared in the kitchen doorway, a bottle in each hand and Ginny at his side with a third. "We come bearing gifts, you ingrates."

He handed the bottles over to Sirius, who inspected the labels, letting out a low whistle when he saw what it was.

"Moony, my dear, he’s gone and brought us the good scotch.” His eyes snapped back up to their godson’s face. “What's the occasion?"

"You mean aside from Christmas?" 

Remus scoffed.

"Odd. Christmas historically has been more of a 'vomiting peppermint schnapps and fruitcake into the hedges' event for you, hasn't it?"

Ginny snorted with laughter at Harry's attempt at a glare. It was cute how he thought he was intimidating anyone with that face.

"You should have seen him after the ministry gala last week," she teased. "He got into an awful row with the 'Burg after he accidentally knocked into her. Wound up lighting her on fire.”

Sirius' expression was positively gleeful.

"Did it take?" Harry shook his head with genuine disappointment. "Damn. I would have paid good money to see that, though."

"Eh, I didn't expect it to work really, she was just being her usual beastly self," Harry said with a shrug. "Reckon we'll get another shot at her after my stag do, at a bare minimum."

There was a resounding silence during which Remus and Sirius exchanged a glance. They turned to Ginny questioningly, and she raised her left hand in answer, showing off the ring on her finger with an excited smile. Looking to Harry for confirmation, the young man shrugged again, this time sheepishly.

Happy Christmas, indeed.

“When did this happen?” Remus asked in a strangely high-pitched voice — he wasn’t getting choked up at all, he just had a tickle in his throat, honest. The couple in front of them seemed to be politely ignoring it, at any rate.

“Bout an hour ago, give or take.” 

Harry didn’t get much more out than that before Sirius had swept him and Ginny both up in a massive bear hug. Unlike Remus, he wasn’t even attempting to retain any sense of decorum, bouncing about like an excited puppy. Sirius released them, letting Remus step in to quietly give his own congratulations as Sirius summoned a set of tumblers, conjuring a pair of ice cubes in each.

“This calls for a toast!” he declared, pouring two fingers of the scotch into the glasses, as excited as he’d been the day Harry was born. Hell, Remus still remembered helping him learn how to take his first steps, and here he was getting married.

Who told him he was allowed to grow up, anyway?

“Little early, isn’t it?” Remus took the proffered tumbler from Sirius, swirling it beneath his nose with practised ease like the hypocrite he was. He frowned. “Harry, did you pick this out yourself?”

“Sort of,” he mumbled, and Remus had a feeling where this was going. “Only I don’t know much about scotch, just that I recognised the name on the label.”

“Oh, bechod,” Remus laughed a bit pityingly. “You’re about to get an education, you are.”

“Why?” Harry asked, suddenly alarmed. “Is it bad? It’s not bad, is it?”

“It’s an acquired taste,” Remus hedged, raising his glass. “A toast! To the happy couple; may you have many years together--”

“And may you never forget your silencing charms, unlike other Potters who shall remain unnamed.”

"That’s why I’m in charge of them," Ginny quipped, and Harry blushed furiously. Remus pretended he'd gone temporarily deaf, making a mental note to pay Sirius back for that entire line of conversation.

"Iechyd da!" The other three echoed the Welsh phrase with varying levels of proficiency and drank.

Ginny knocked hers back like the champion she was, but Harry coughed and spluttered, staring at the glass with something bordering on betrayal. Remus gave him a mild look over the rim of his own tumbler.

"Why does this taste like I just licked an ashtray?”

“Because you’ve not yet acquired the taste for it.”

“Why would anyone _want_ to? Fucking Christ.” He screwed his face up and shuddered dramatically, holding the offending drink out to his now-fiancée, who rolled her eyes good-naturedly before taking it from him. “You two drink this? Regularly?”

“It takes a little practice before you get past that strong peaty taste on the front. Eventually, you start picking up other flavours and the like.” Sirius took another sip, rolling it around his tongue. “I’m getting vanilla on this, you getting that?”

“Vanilla and oak,” Remus mused, nodding slowly. “Bit of a fruity taste on the finish, it’s quite nice.”

Harry was staring at the pair of them like they’d quite lost their minds. Ginny was visibly stifling laughter.

“So,” she broke in, interrupting the brewing discussion of the finer points of Islay scotch versus Speyside -- an inevitable debate that had yet to be settled between them. “I see you two have been baking.”

“No one has ever accused us of being properly domesticated,” Sirius drawled. “I don’t believe either of us are keen to start now.”

“Don’t you mean domestic?” Harry asked, slowly recovering from the assault on his tastebuds.

“No, I mean domesticated.” Sirius snatched up the lewdest pair of biscuits on the rack and showed them off. “Just because we’re two grown men baking biscuits doesn’t mean we’re going to be polite about it.”

“Clearly.”

“So,” Remus broke in, wanting to steer the conversation back into safer waters as quickly as possible. “How’d it happen?”

“Well, I was _going_ to ask her, but she, erm.” Harry ran a hand through his already mussed hair, causing it to stand slightly on end. Ginny looked awfully smug, and Remus felt something like dread crawling up his spine in time with the widening grin on her face. He buried his face in his hands with a groan, hearing Sirius whooping with glee beside him.

“What did I say, eh? I told you she’d beat him to it, and look at her!” 

Remus dragged his hands down his face to glare at him.

“Are you quite finished?”

“Ah, ah! No complaining, no fussing! That was the deal! We shook on it and everything!”

“Were you betting on us?” Harry asked, his expression a study in fond exasperation.

“Never mind that!” Ginny was jabbing her finger into Remus’ chest indignantly. “You bet against me!”

James would have absolutely loved Ginny, Remus thought distantly. She was a fiery, passionate little thing with a mischievous streak that put the twins to shame. She also could probably have flown circles around him on the pitch, and if there was one thing that immediately made James love you, it was besting him at something he was good at. That’s why James had adored Lily practically from day one: she regularly outwitted him.

“He didn’t bet _against_ you, Ginny, he had only bet that Harry was going to propose today!”

“I suppose men are the only ones who can do that then? What, do women burst into flames if they give it a go?” She whirled on Harry, who was watching her with a mixture of pride and amusement in his eyes. “Did I spontaneously combust? I might have missed the fucking memo on that one, but I dunno, my tiny female brain can only absorb so much information at once.”

She and Lily would have gotten on like a house on fire. They'd have set up camp in the living room, Lily with her wine and Ginny with her whiskey, and plotted to take over the world together (since those ignorant knob-goblins in the ministry couldn't be trusted to find their own arses with one hand clapped to each cheek.) If anyone could, it would have been those two, had they ever gotten the chance to meet.

The world would never know.

"Before you string my guts about the tree like a garland," Remus interjected softly. "I thought you might want to hang your ornament on the tree."

Ginny deflated slightly, taken entirely by surprise.

"Ornament?"

He flicked his wand, and the six hand-cut biscuits came floating over, bits of string looped through the top of each. Harry gave his raven an approving grin.

"I see you didn't burn the edges this year."

"Miraculously, no."

"This year?" Ginny asked. Remus nodded.

"Every Christmas, I make gingerbread ornaments for my family. I put preserving charms on them to keep them fresh through New Year's Eve, and then at midnight, everyone eats their biscuit."

"Just their own?"

"Yes," Remus said, the corners of his lips twitching upwards. "It's bad form to eat your family."

Sirius and Harry both snorted at that, and Ginny nodded solemnly.

"Fair enough. Suppose we're frightfully stringy anyway."

"Good way to get indigestion."

Ginny gently plucked her ornament out of the air.

"A quaffle, eh?" She traced her fingers over the details he'd been careful to add, her initials in gold. He could see the scar on her middle knuckle from when she'd punched Antonin Dolohov in the mouth.

"Makes sense," Sirius said. "What with you being the star Chaser for the Harpies and all."

"You need your head checked, Black. I'm just a second-string rookie."

"Not forever." Remus nodded in agreement.

"We have faith in you."

Ginny bit her lip, looking down at the ornament in her hands, and for a moment Remus was transported back to his old office, watching that same thoughtful face, those same freckled hands clutching a cup of tea as she quietly confided in him about being a passenger in her own body. Remus had understood her better than he could ever put into words.

Harry slipped an arm around her waist, pressing a kiss to her hair, and she leaned into him gently.

"Mum's liable to do her nut when we tell her," she said softly. "She's been pushing me to get some quiet office job for ages. 'You've got the scores for it, Ginevra,'" she affected Molly's strident tones. "'You can't keep dodging bludgers while you're trying to raise a family, you know.'"

"That's rather none of her business, isn't it?" Remus asked mildly, and Sirius grunted in agreement, having butted heads with Molly frequently over the years.

"It's not, but you know how she is," Harry sighed, and that was about the last straw for Remus.

It's not that they were afraid of Molly. It's that it wore on them, and Ginny especially, to have her mother continually minimise her achievements — which were many; the girl had a bloody Order of Merlin, for God's sake — to push her into becoming a carbon copy of herself. Not that there was anything wrong with being a homemaker if that's what Ginny wanted to do. But she didn't, and Molly had a bad habit of not respecting her children's dreams when they didn't quite align with her own. Harry and Ginny seemed to be resigning themselves to the possibility of an evening of not-so-subtle digs at her profession, and Remus had bloody well had enough.

"Your mother would have had a few things to say about that, Harry." He drained the rest of his drink in one go, setting the tumbler firmly on the counter. "If Molly is anything less than fully supportive of anything you two want to do tonight, I will personally string her from the fucking rafters, because Lily's not here to do it herself."

"So you're standing in for my mum tonight, is that it?" Harry asked, amused. Remus straightened to his full height, folding his arms over his chest stubbornly.

"Someone's got to."

"Yeah, something about subverting gender roles and biscuit decorations," Sirius drawled. "It's apparently the theme, just go with it."

"You're not getting me in a skirt."

"And I maintain that it's a crime to hide those legs of yours."

"Right!" Harry cut in desperately. "Less foreplay, please, for the love of God."

Sirius frowned at him sternly.

"That's no way to speak to your mother, Harry."

Ginny was laughing again, though, so a bit of mortification on Harry's end was well worth it. Remus shook his head.

"Alright, give us a bit to get cleaned up here, and then we'll do the tree and head over together, yeah?" Ginny nodded and stepped in to give Remus a hug.

"Thank you."

"Anything for our Gingersnap!" Sirius called over Ginny's head. "Remus, could you dig up the biscuit tin before we get too busy?"

"Yeah, I'll do it now in a minute."

"Is that an actual minute or a Moony minute?"

Remus scowled as Ginny released him.

"You think you're very clever."

"What's a Moony minute?" Harry asked warily, and Sirius was ready.

"Any amount of time between an actual minute and 'procrastinating so long you forget about it entirely.'"

He was very proud of himself for that one.

"I don't _forget_ ," Remus insisted. "I just... really commit to procrastinating."

Sirius tossed a gingerbread man at him like a ninja star, nailing Remus in the shoulder. Harry caught it on the rebound.

"Quit wasting food, children!" Remus wheeled on him, feigning offence.

"How am I getting lumped in with this one now then?"

"Because I know better, now shut up and hop to!"

They all had a good laugh about Harry attempting to pull his Auror voice on them — as if _any_ of them, Harry included, gave two figs about authority — and cleared up the kitchen together. The biscuit tin was unearthed in the sitting room under a pile of Tolstoy novels and Remus' favourite scarf. Rather than using magic, Ginny had climbed up on Harry's shoulders to place their ornaments near the top of the tree. Sirius had tried to jump on Remus' back to do the same, but Remus had been unprepared for the sudden assault, and so they'd gone arse over tea kettle onto the sitting room floor instead. Sirius accepted defeat and placed the ornaments onto a nice spot near the centre of the tree by way of apology.

He was alright sometimes, Sirius was. Remus supposed he'd keep him.

They showed up to the Burrow together, where Molly and Arthur had been immediately over the moon about Ginny's new ring, and Bill had immediately teased Remus over his violently red hair.

"I lost a bet," he said by way of explanation, and Bill struggled not to laugh.

"Well, at least you blend in!"

He'd promised no complaints and no fussing, and Remus Lupin was a man of his word. Even if he did kind of want to hex Sirius' hair green to match.

But no, he'd behave himself. He'd promised.

Sirius was in his element, regaling the family with tales of Christmases past, and Remus only needed to correct his details once. It was such an amazing improvement that Remus had quickly forgotten to be half-cross with him.

As for Molly, she managed to corner Ginny over dinner about her Quidditch career, and Remus gave it about ten seconds before he slid in with a short list of post-career options, with some input from Sirius who was better versed in the subject than he was, technically.

"Though that will be for Ginny to decide once she's ready," Remus said firmly, allowing a hint of iron to creep into his voice. Sirius' hand found his beneath the table, twining their fingers together in silent support. "And until that point, we'll be showing up to every game with bells on. Your daughter has worked too hard for this to give it up for anyone, even Harry."

"Not that I'd ask that anyway," Harry muttered, and Ginny nudged his shoulder with hers.

"You're smarter than you look, Potter."

"Ta very much for that, love."

Just like that, the tense mood was broken; everyone laughed and tucked back into their roast, content to let the subject lie. Even Molly, though she looked as though she'd swallowed a lemon. Arthur at least met their eyes over the table and gave them both a nod of thanks. Remus supposed he could relate with the concept of holding your peace in the interest of keeping it. He had been guilty of it quite often in the past.

And as Remus sat by the fire later that evening, Sirius dozing tipsily with his head resting over Remus' heart, he thought about how Harry had told them that his parents had been watching all this time. He knew they were proud of Harry — how could they not be? — and he knew they'd have loved Ginny. Remus just hoped they were proud of him and Sirius too.


End file.
